


kiss me in front of a klimt

by bonjourmags



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Art, M/M, Museums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 12:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17918714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonjourmags/pseuds/bonjourmags
Summary: Bucky knew nothing about art, but that did nothing to stop him from taking a job at a museum. That was where he met him; this boy he had mistaken at first for a girl, with his fragile figure, and that mysterious tattoo on his arm. They decided to play a game together: if Bucky could surprise Steve with an art fact, he would reveal what his tattoo meant. With all of this, a friendship forming, Bucky realized something: Steve was his favourite kind of art.





	kiss me in front of a klimt

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to thank my wonderful beta (buckyskillingme on tumblr!) for putting with all of my last-minute work, Jake (LasenbyPhoenix on tumblr) the artist who worked with me, and the mods!
> 
> Have fun reading and enjoy the art!

"No. That's a shitty job."

Their eyes locked together. Bucky could sense that he annoyed Sam to hell, but he knew he was right. Working in a post office was a shitty job and he wouldn't be up for it. "Alright, dude. Do you have anything else up your sleeve then?" Sam asked before he took a bite of his apple. 

Bucky gave him a long 'hmmm' as an answer, but nothing real. Anything would be better than working in a post office. Being a janitor would be better. Maybe a janitor was actually a good idea, but it meant downgrading from his last job. It was such a shame that they had fired him, because, and as ridiculous and cliché as it sounded, being a coffee barista was a nice fit for him. Maybe the reason he got fired was because he was a bit too comfortable in the position. Or the free cups he kept offering to cute girls.

Nah, it's probably not that.

He had been good at that job. He was gifted with coffee powers, as his sister told him, and his smile attracted tips faster than the heat called mosquitoes.  
"I don't know, Bucky. You don't want the place at my mom's post office and you don't want to work in a cafe anymore. Which is, by the way, a shame; you're good at it," Sam went on. 

Bucky rolled his eyes. "I know that I'm good at it, Sam, that's the problem." 

Sam stared. "You're telling me that being good a something won't let you do the job. That's ridiculous."

Bucky shifted in his chair. "Hm, ya know what they say? Third time's the charm. If I take a second coffee shop job, well, jamais deux sans trois," he said in a terrible french accent. Sam's reaction indicated he didn't understand what Bucky was trying to say, so Bucky went on. "If I work a second time at a coffee shop, then it's never two without three, so I'll work in a coffee shop a fourth time. Why not a fifth? And then my whole life will be determined by bein' a coffee boy. I'm twenty one. I’m not ready to spend the next fifty years miswritin' names on cups." 

Sam's eyes told him that he was monologuing for nothing. "Boy, you drill." 

Bucky sighed and put his head in his hands, "Fuck, I can't just stay and do nothin', I need money to eat. Not that much, y'know, but at least a bit, something like two hundred bucks per month, that's easy peasy. Like. Two days of work per week, that would be very nice."

Sam licked his lips with a pensive face, "Okay. You know what? Let's make a list of places and you'll go to all of them, drop your resume, with whatever you might have on it,” he suggested. Bucky tried not to attack back at Sam's words, instead willing to try the idea. Sam opened his wallet and took out a piece of paper, probably a receipt from one of his many late night expeditions, while Bucky offered him a pencil. "Okay, no coffee. No post office. How about retail? Ever tried that?" 

Bucky shrugged. "Never have. Everyone says it's hell, though." 

Sam smirked. "Oh, perfect, you'll be at home then."

"Quit it, Sam," he started, but stopped himself when he remembered that Sam was trying to help. "Okay, uh, retail so, well, write uhm, write H&M and Urban Outfitters maybe? I guess these brands will let me keep my long hair." Sam nodded and Bucky caught the addition of Hot Topic on the paper. 

"Now. How about a bowling place?” proposed Sam to which Bucky winced. 

"Bowling? How the fuck did you think of that?"

"I don't know. How the fuck did you not think of that?" Sam shot back and Bucky knew he couldn't win an argument against this stupid head. "If we're talking about a bowling, how about one of those escape game places, and you know what? Let's add ridiculous places. The ones we read in books and see in movies, like flower shops. Tattoo shops, museums, sex shops, balloon and candy places, a library," Sam suggested with a wink even as he jotted down all of his own propositions. Bucky made a mental note that this would be the last time he’d ask for Sam's help. Next time, Kate would help probably be way more helpful. 

"I don't know shit about flowers," he started, "I don't know how to hold a pencil, let alone a tattoo gun, I don't know shit about art either, uh, well, I do know some stuff about sex but not sex toys. Balloon and candy, are you for real, Sam? And a library?” He paused. “Well, why not, actually."

Sam handed him the list. "You know what? You try. All of them, and you see if it goes. Best scenario you have a job you can like. Worst scenario you receive a letter that says ‘I'm sorry mister, we're not interested. Go and try your luck somewhere else,’ and you won't die."

Bucky knew it was actually a good idea. Bucky was a sucker for trying new things out, and giving his resumé to numerous places like that could bring some exciting news. So he did.

A few weeks after, he got a bunch of letters, and a bunch of phone calls. He noted them all on his fridge - well, not his fridge, but the one he shared with Sam, Billy, and sometimes the boyfriend of the latter, Teddy, who was almost living with them, minus paying rent. 

The blond boy was looking at all the crossed applications, "Well, this isn't working out very well," he noted without sarcasm. 

Bucky was on the couch but knew what he was talking about. "Oh, yeah, the job thing. Well, I mean, for the tattoo shop they asked where I used to work, and I was like, uh, a coffee shop? Then they were asking me if I had some drawings to show them and since I had none, it was clear that I was out of the job, y'know,” he laughed. "The dude said, when I left from the interview, 'such a shame, you look exactly like the type of people we wanted.' Do I look like a tattoo person? Maybe I do. 'S the hair, I guess."

Teddy took the paper between his fingers, putting the magnet that used to hold it away. "Okay, what happened with the flower shop?" 

Bucky shrugged. " 'ey said they were busy, that they'll look my resumé when they have time. The escape game thing said that they're not searching anyone. Library never called back. I didn't give my resumé at the bowling alley because the dude seemed super sketchy, y’know? I feel these things! Then for the shops they all said that I was a bit too late for summer applications, and when I said I wanted a job for the whole year, they said I was too early. ‘Try again in July.’"

"Okay, and the sex shop? Please tell me you got in, or that they said that it was 'such a shame, you look exactly like the type of people we wanted'," Teddy told him in a laugh to which Bucky answered with disappointment.

"Well, I thought I nailed the interview, but Sam told me I was blushing like a virgin once I was out of the room, so I guess I was too during it. Sad. No free dildos for you, guys."  
Teddy laughed again, "Damn. And what about the muse-" he started, but he was stopped by Bucky's phone. Bucky looked at the ID, and smiled.

"Well, we'll know in a second."

***

Bucky got the job at the museum. He couldn't believe it, because he had the worst art culture, and he knew nothing about art. Like, at all. He knew the famous stuff, like everyone else, which meant Andy Warhol and Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, but that's all. That was the reason why he researched a lot - and by a lot, it meant that he spent one entire night on some weird Wikipedia just for art, wait, was it Wikiart? Artpedia? He didn't even know anymore. It didn't matter at all. He took notes, watched a few documentaries, and when the interview happened, he had things to talk about. He could remember the exact moment he said, 'oh yes, I love Klimt,' but he couldn't remember if it was the dude who did the classical publicities for coffee and alcohol or the one painting with gold. Tomato tomatoe, right?

The interviewer suspected nothing. Bucky was the best, and looked like one of the guys who actually knew what they were talking about. 'We like the fact that you're an art fan, and we think you'll be pleased to work with it. Are you still up to work during Wednesdays and Saturdays? Is it okay for you, Mister Barnes?' was probably the weirdest sentence he’d ever heard in his life. But he got the job, right? He could fool them for a few months, then get fired, then he would go back to Sam's stupid list. Maybe he'll be fired at the right time to try his chance at Urban Outfitters again.

He had the job. He couldn't believe it.

He won't lie; (well, he won't lie to anyone who isn't his interviewer, or someone who could fire him) this was a perfect job. All he had to do was to stay in a room for a hour and a half, wait, see if people were trying to steal the paintings, or touch the sculptures with their unwashed hands (even if the hands were washed, it was a big no), then change rooms. That happened five times a day, and then he was free with 120 more bucks in his bank account. He was living the great life.

He knew it was a bit ironic to work in an art museum when he didn't really care about art, but he knew life was made of stupid jokes, and this must be one of those.

The job was really nice. Paid well for what he had to do, and while he was bored six hours a day two days per week, it was okay for him. The best moment was when he discovered that he could study while working, which surprised him, but apparently it wasn't a problem. He was told that he could even be on his phone, as long as he was watching if someone was in the room, in case someone wanted to steal a Monet or put their sticky fingers on some Picasso.

Not that these names mattered to him. They were as foreign as others.

After a month, Bucky couldn't say he didn't like art anymore, because that turned out to be an ugly lie. He kind of liked it. Not all of it, and he surely didn't understand it like he thought he should have, but it was a start. He liked Klimt and Egon Schiele. That was a start, right? He was sure his feelings went to these artists because of the love for bodies they had. Mostly Egon Schiele. He was tortured, oh yes, you could see it with your eyes closed, but the pain was, in a weird way, changed into passion. Schiele was mad, but mad in a good way. In a way that made him creative - made him unforgettable, even by some dude who works in some museum with no interest for art. And that counted.

Bucky knew that art was supposed to be beautiful. Or that was the primary purpose, before the new times when shocking the public seemed to be the most important factor. He has heard the sentence, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that was some silly shit to Bucky. Beauty was there, that's all. He could appreciate pretty things, but the beauty wasn't in his eyes, nor his mind. It was outside. It was that cute girl with the nicely cut hair, or the one he kept seeing in the train with those remarkable blue eyes, or his coffee barista with her face a bit red from walking her dog before her shift.

He remarked others. Maybe Bucky wasn't such a big fan of art, but he was a big fan of people's heads and bodies. Humans were his kind of art, maybe. He was a romantic at heart, and that he couldn't deny. 

Simply, he found pretty things everywhere. He found it in the way people held themselves, in the way girls used makeup to enhance their natural beauty, the way someone looked when they were texting happily. He was aware that this was overly sugar coated, but come on, you could decide to fall in love with everything and everyone once in a while. Not that life was dull without that tightness around his chest, but it seemed to be better when he let himself like more things. Fall for someone, fall for something, fall for a song, fall for the night sky. That's how he let himself fall for her. 

Well, he thought it was a her, but turned out to be a him. 

The first time he saw her, he was amazed. He didn't even see her face right away; she was staring at a painting full of pastel colors, watching it as if she was herself a statue. Bucky learned quickly that art could change people into blocks of marble because when they were admiring artworks, people tended to freeze. Bucky preferred pretty faces to pretty paint, so he spent most of his time in the museum gazing at the way people held themselves in front of these pieces.

She was frail. No; she was delicate. Bucky was no writer, and his mind couldn't address words to describe her, but it seemed that it would've been a bit silly to note how soft her short hair looked, how tiny her hands seemed, how small she appeared in front of The Deposition from the Cross by Jacobo Pontormo, or how she contrasted her boyish clothes with the way she held her sketchbook. It's funny how emotions are the human's true driver, because Bucky's brain is always trying to get high on something. Not drugs, but feelings, like anger, sorrow, joy, passion. He was fairly sure that he was too young and didn't own the right apparel in his pants to feel like a mother who wanted to protect her daughter from the meanness of the world. But there he was. He was protective of her at this moment, protective of some girl he hadn’t even met.

Thinking about it, it was probably not his motherly instincts doing this. It was probably the fact that he was a tiny bit lonely, and she was small, in an awfully cute way. It wasn't motherly instincts; it was boyfriend instincts kicking his guts.

His mind let him run with the idea that it would be nice to hug someone before sleeping. Or hold hands when he walked down the street, playfully annoying her when they watched movies with his stupid thoughts, pick her up from behind to surprise her and never letting her touch the ground until they arrived at their new favorite place in the park, holding her like a princess. Yeah, all of that was painfully cliché, but he couldn’t help himself. Those romantic movies that Sam made him watch 'ironically' painted his mind with foolish ideas. He didn't mind, because tooth-rotting dates would always make his heart melt. And maybe this girl's heart too.

There was one problem. She was wearing suspenders.

It was a big problem. Usually, Bucky was the worst when it came to clothes, wearing the eternal black t-shirt over black pants over black sneakers. Sam told him that he should dye his brown hair to black, so the prophecy could be completed. Despite this stupid advice, Bucky trusted the others of the group when it came to looks and clothes. That's why he trusted Billy Kaplan. And yes, Bucky knew that it was another cliché, trusting the gay friend to pick your clothes, telling you how long you hair should be, but he had no idea that Billy was gay before Billy became his shopping buddy.

Shopping buddy meant: Billy gave him clothes, he tried them on, Bucky growled but still bought them.

He enjoyed having a life made of many clichés. It gave him a 'Truman-show' kind of vibe, telling him that maybe he's in one of those unoriginal comedies he liked to watch. Maybe he was completely wrong and he's just Sam's best friend in his super exciting movie. Nah, probably not. Sam couldn't be the first role, there was someone else who had that place. Bucky wouldn't mind to be in this girl's movie. He didn't care if he was the sidekick, or that awful first romantic interest that you forget about, but he wouldn't mind. Not if it was with her.

Back to the suspenders. To be straightforward: Billy said (maybe it was a joke? Billy's sarcastic tone was pretty much the same as his normal tone) that suspenders were only worn by old people or lesbians. That closed the case very quickly. That ended Bucky's dreams at a speed that wouldn't stop growing, but he kept his tiny fantasies driving his heart around, because damn, she had these kind of very small artistic hands with pen ink on them and he'd very much like to hold them in his. She was still watching The Deposition from the Cross, as if she was somewhere there with the other characters, and Bucky's mind wanted to create metaphors. He wanted to write poems about her being Mary, but Mary was a mother and Bucky was the protective one here, then he thought that maybe she could have been Eve, but the second it crossed his mind, she moved, turning around.

And suddenly, she wasn't a she anymore.

She was a he, and way more close to Adam than Eve.

But the feeling didn't fly away. The envy, the need, the desire to protect, to hold hands, to annoy him at a theater, to take him like a princess - a prince - all of this was still there, laying around next to Bucky's heart. The feelings were crossing the path from his brain to his lips, lips to eyes, eyes who were looking at a pretty boy. It would be a lie and way too sugar coated to say that he was the cutest boy he'd ever seen, the hottest boy he'd ever seen, the prettiest one. But he was something you couldn't forget about.

Their eyes met and Bucky thought they would've shared the oceans that they both kept inside their irises - but that was also a lie. Bucky shared his own, while the other just took and left before he could give anything, because it was a simple look. It wasn't meaningful like Bucky wanted it to be. Bucky was an art guardian, and the boy was an art watcher. 

That's all, and nothing more. Life wasn't a movie, Bucky, life was a real thing and full of disappointment.

That was the thing with daydreaming; you always woke up somewhere, somewhere being this cold room, (not cold because it was poetic, but cold because museums used way too much air-conditioning to Bucky's taste), full of lifeless paintings that everyone seemed to love, but Bucky wasn't sure if he liked them. Sure, he learned to appreciate them with the time he spent working here, but he still wasn't an art fan.

He was a human fan.

Their eye contact lasted a second. It was normal, there weren't any fireworks, and after a hour, Bucky forgot about the boy who made him question if suspenders were only for lesbians.

***

They were all drinking, but not alcohol because who drinks alcohol when it's two in the afternoon and you're at a picnic, while playing question games. It was stupid but deeply domestic and Bucky liked being around his university friends, mostly when they were all being calm and not under work deadlines or finals' stress. Kate, her head rested in America's lap, asked: "Okay, for how much would you fuck someone your sex? This is a question that goes to the straighties here." Billy laughed at Kate's inquiry. 

"There's not much around here. You know, the gays, they do move in herds." Bucky and Sam rolled their eyes. "Okay, okay, this questions is kind of... tryin' to expose us, right?" his friend said, handing his soda to Bucky, a grin painting his lips. "How about we reverse the question too? For how much would you fuck someone who's the opposite sex?" he countered, and Kate laughed.

"Well, I'm Bi, so pretty much nothing. Maybe pay me a beer before. Or dinner. That's all," she told him, a hand taking more chips and the other playing with America's hair.  
America answered the question differently. "Ugh, dicks," she said with a frown. "I don't know. Maybe like, five hundred bucks?"

Teddy choked on his soda, "Only? I won't touch any female parts without a K in my pockets." 

Kate rolled her eyes. "You can say vagina. It won't hurt you. Okay, Billy? Bucky? Sam?"

"I'd say like America. Maybe less. I'm straight as hell, but well, I don't think I'd mind that much. I prefer not, of course, but there's much bigger problems in life," Sam tried as an answer, and everyone took it with deep thoughts. Bucky quite agreed. 

But that wasn't what his mouth said. "I wouldn't ask for money."

Billy shifted in his seat, surprised. "What?" 

Bucky shook his head, almost surprised at himself. "Yeah, I wouldn't ask anything. But it has to be someone special. Not like, oh, it has to be my prince charmin', that's stupid as heck. But like. Someone with a good ol' personality. Someone who makes me forget that balls aren't tits and that his dick isn't a vag," he explained and Teddy quirked when he heard the word vagina - because Teddy may be twenty, studying and living in his own place without parents, but he had the same maturity as a sixteen year old boy. 

"The fuck this is coming from?" Sam was the first to ask. "You're straight. Come on. You're not leaving me all alone in this group. Please," he pleaded, but it changed to sarcasm halfway.

Bucky wasn't sure where it was coming from. Maybe the nights he spent looking at his pillow that he used like it's someone he held, because he was kind of lonely and he didn't want to admit it to his friends that were all dating each other. "I'm still straight," he said. But maybe it's about him. And that, he was okay with saying. "But I've been around my own mind and I asked some questions, yknow? And I think I won't mind. If he's nice. Then I've started daydreamin', and when you start daydreaming it's fucked up, it's the way your brain tells you you fucked up and there's no going back." 

They were all mad for a second, of course, it was kind of surprising to hear Bucky talk about these things, but yet they knew him way before and they should have seen it coming their way. It wasn't surprising; he was a lover inside, he was a keeper, he liked to protect, and while he did care about the looks, he has taken home more than a girl that wasn't judged as freakin’ hot but who had a thing or two that made them different. 

"Who is he? Who's the guy? We want gossip. Don't drop a bomb without giving us bandaids to recover," Teddy was the first to ask but it was the question wanting to escape everyone's lips.

Bucky smiled. "It's not a someone. Well, I guess you can say it's a someone who brought the idea, but I'd say yes to other guys than him. It's more like I realized that I'm curious. Always 'been, just never out loud." Suddenly he remembered the boy, the one he took for Eve, as if he had forgotten him or locked up the thought in a safe with all of these important memories you keep away from your own brain. He knew that this boy, this Eve who was Adam, started something. Revealed something that was there before but stayed hidden.

Or maybe he was so surrounded by art that his heart wanted his life to be as perfect as one of the paintings he guarded. 

"Just some dude. I thought he was a girl at first, because he was all frail and fragile and small? So I was like, damn, she looks cute, and she looks like I could pick her up." Sam laughed and Bucky frowned, continuing, "pick her up to carry her around, of course," sending an annoyed look to Sam, "and I thought she'd look cute on her tiptoes tryin' to get to my lips, these kind of really stupid love stories we read about but never live, but it's cool to have some fairytales in your head, yeah?" 

There's a silence as an angel passed, and then someone laughed. Kate hushed whoever it was. "Come on dude, he's just a romantic. Don't make fun of him." 

Sam, who happened to be the one who laughed, responded. "I'm sure you get plenty of girls with pretty words like these. But I don't think that's what you think." 

Bucky hit him gently with the back of his hand. "Shuddup." 

After this talk, it seemed like the boy was everywhere. Bucky knew it was only his mind playing with his nerves; when you wanted to buy a red car, you would see red cars everywhere. When you're reading a book, you see the characters in people riding the bus. When you want to take some dog home from a shelter, you become super aware of everyone having their own. 

That was what happened with the blonde boy. Bucky was working only two days per week, but that was enough to see him. At least once a week, sometimes twice. He quickly learned things about him, the information that you got from silent stares, from lingering a bit too long. Firstly, he was an art student. He had that orange card (with the unflattering face picture, like everyone) that gave him free access to a few museums in town, including the one Bucky was working in. When he asked why for, Bucky's coworker told him that it was because they needed to re-draw some stuff for assignments, and that they needed a giant art culture to get through the theoretical exams. 

With this information, Bucky found it hard not to notice that the blonde boy was always drawing the artworks. He constantly had a sketchbook somewhere next to him, even when he was just lost in his thoughts around a painting. 

He saw him trying to enter The Beanery. Bucky hated The Beanery, because it was hella morbid and he had to help a girl having a panic attack after visiting it. It was an artwork from Edward Kienholz, a life-size representation of a bar. Said like this, it sounded super cool and it kind of was, but the problem was that you could only enter it alone since it was really small, which could trigger some claustrophobic response. What really frightened Bucky were the statues inside. They were made of wood, and looked pretty much humanoid, but their heads were replaced with clocks. And that was creepy as hell. 

Bucky saw the blond boy entering The Beanery and when he got out he seemed to have lost his color, skin paler than ever, and that was something because the dude was already as white as a baby’s butt. Bucky looked at him, then locked his eyes with the girl who was guarding The Beanery. She held the same tired eyes, the ones caring for strangers who go inside that scary artwork. It would be so romantic and movie-like to go to the boy and ask him if he's okay, maybe lend him a shoulder to catch his breath on, that's why Bucky wanted to do it. But Sam would laugh, so he didn't do it. Bucky wondered what made him feel so uneasy inside the artpiece. Had it been the clocks disguised as humans? Or because it was so small? Was it for something else?

Then he saw him again, watching another painting. _"What you watchin', babe, when you're the biggest artpiece in this room?"_ were words burning in Bucky's throat, but they were ridiculous too. Kate would say that he's being some kind of dumb jock while the person he's trying to impress is an art lover. These two didn't just fall in the same category.

It was surprising, to have a crush on a boy, at least at first. Bucky hoped it wasn't a last. It felt different than when it was on girls, but yet so similar. It wasn't such a big thing, because most of his friends were gay or nowhere near straight on the spectrum, but it was still new to him. Like reading a new book, you knew most of the plot because you read so many books before, but still you faked surprise when the romantic interest turned out to be the bad guy, and in the end you still enjoyed reading the book.

Maybe the weirdest thing was that it wasn't that weird for him at all. Like it has always been that way, like he went for Adam and Eve and not just Eve. His mind was strange, sometimes. Hiding things from him. 

Then he saw him again. And again, and again, then another time. Months went by, and the boy seemed to get better. Like, literally, getting better. As if he was sick in the first place. He entered The Beanery another time and he didn't panic inside. Bucky was amazed, he couldn't do that. Bucky was a fine observer, and he saw stuff. Because people changed all the time, and the blonde boy was no exception. He was... breathing differently. That was a huge change, difficult to explain with other words than these, he changed the way he breathed. He seemed more at ease with his lungs than he did the first time Bucky laid his eyes on him, two months ago. Maybe Bucky was just imagining things, people don't suddenly breathe differently, do they? 

But the blond boy seemed like he did. 

Then one day, Bucky talked to him. Because that's what supposed to happen, right? Boy meets boy, boy crushes on him, boy talks to the other boy, boy falls in love, boy falls apart. That's how love stories went. That was what you could find in the books and in the movies. (Well, in the sad ones. Bucky knew that most of the romantic movies ended with some cute and domestic scene.) 

It wasn't all cute or all smooth like he wished it happened. It was, for sure, a meet-cute, but what happened after the first looks was more headed towards a meet-awkward, awkwardness started by Bucky's misunderstanding. 

The boy was seating on one of the big half-sofas half-chairs that the museum provided, the ones with no room to rest you back, while he watched an interesting painting. Most of the paintings in the museum could be called pretty paintings, but this one was different ; it wasn't beautiful. It was simple, yet very satisfying. On Kawara was a great artist, that's for sure. The whole room was actually covered with art that showed the same thing:

A color, always plain, as a background, a date in the middle of it, either white or black, and a box with a newspaper next to it. 

Bucky wasn't a stranger with this artwork. He knew that these were the 'date paintings' made by On Kawara, and that the idea behind it was to paint the date of the day, then join it with the latest newspaper. That was a work who would take Kawara's entire life. The room had a few of them, since they were so many made. The dates were the following; February 15, 2006, November 19, 1981, July 4, 1967 and May 31, 1972. These paintings were impressive because they were so simple. Bucky could understand why you would like to stay around and get lost between these dates, reading what happened these days on the newspapers next to the paintings. Bucky thought that in some way, the whole room was art, not only the paintings.

The blonde boy was looking at the one saying July 4, 1967, and Bucky wasn't surprised. This is always everyone's favorite - well, it is America's day after all. If Bucky had a buck  
for every selfie made with that painting (they were authorized, but no flashes, these could slowly destroy the paintings), he could be sleeping without having to hear Sam snoring through their thin walls. But the boy's eyes weren't only staring at this one; they were going between the November one too. 

Bucky liked seeing him from the back. It reminded him the first time he saw him, a few months ago, when he assumed his gender. He wanted to give him attention, do something cute maybe, just to match the cute comics he saw on internet, by sticking a piece of paper on his back with his number on it. 

As if his thoughts were said out loud, the boy started to rub his back, and by doing so his sleeve who was probably two sizes too big fell, revealing the top of his arm. If it was 1878, it would have been very sexy. But it was 2018, and seeing an arm wasn't too attractive. Plus the boy had really, really skinny arms. What disturbed Bucky was that he was bleeding. The was a long trail of blood, and it was surprising that the boy's t-shirt wasn't stained with it. Bucky searched for a tissue somewhere in one of his pockets, and he knew he had one, because his mother taught him well to always keep one on him, in case of a bad cold. Once it was found, he walked up to the boy, and with all of his courage, he tapped gently his shoulder. Blonde boy turned around, surprised, but not annoyed in any way. He was looking right into Bucky's eyes and maybe that was the ocean-sharing shit he dreamed of a few months ago. 

"Here. For your arm," he offered and he didn't need that much courage to say that. He wasn't shy, talking was no problem for him, blonde boy or not. 

He looked at Bucky's hand and his whole body was screaming silent questions, but he brought his hand up to touch his arm, but the wrong one. 

"Oh no, not that one, this one," Bucky told him, the tissue still in his hand. He gestured to the blonde boy’s bleeding arm, trying not to touch the stranger, because that's not something to do. It was weird. It looked like blood went out of gunshot wound. But there was no way he could have been shot in a museum, right? The blond boy looked at his arm, and when he locked eyes with Bucky again, his lips were parted in a smile. A small laugh escaped him, without a warning. Bucky could have used one. 

"I'm not hurt. But thanks," was all he said, waiting for Bucky to return his tissue back to his pocket. 

"But you're bleeding,” Bucky insisted, and blonde boy shook his head.

"No, no, it's a tattoo. I'm fine. Really," he rubbed the place where the blood was, and it didn't change anything. "See?" It was indeed a tattoo. Who would even tattoo that kind of thing, Bucky wondered silently.

"Oh. I didn't think it was a tattoo, sorry pal," he excused himself and before leaving with his chance of a first meeting, he decided to stick around just a little more. "That's a hella intriguin' tattoo. Why do you have that? Got shot? Army?" he asked. Blond boy laughed. 

"You have to be at least level 3 friendship to unlock my tattoo backstory, sorry James!" he told him as an answer and Bucky froze when he heard his actual name. He was sure he hadn't told him that, and he had never met the boy before this museum, so there's no way he could have known his name. That's weird as hell, he thought, before realizing that he had a name-tag with James written on it, right above his left titty. (Not his words, but Sam's.) It's not hard to read it, and this guy who's in art college probably learned how to read. Probably, it's just a possibility. 

"Bucky actually. James' the official name, but Bucky's the one I use."

Steve smiled, as if it was the original position of his face. "How does someone get from James to Bucky?" he asked, and that earned him a laugh.

"Oh, it’s a nickname. Lil' sis was too stubborn to call me James, so she used my second name which is hella hard to say when you're four. So it went from Buchanan to Bucky,” he explained that for probably the three hundred and sixth time of his life, so it wasn't really opening up to blond boy. Just normal conversation. 

"You're named James Buchanan? Damn, your parents must hate you," the boy joked around.

"I know! It's like, the worst president we ever got, right?" Bucky started with a slight excitement in his voice while he watched out so he wouldn't speak too loud for the other visitors. He knew it was fine for him to engage conversation with someone and that he wouldn't get fired for that. Anyway, visitors always asked questions and if anyone wanted to know what they were talking about, Bucky could feign that he was giving out information.

"Yeah, him and the orange guy we're having right now," the boy answered..

"And Andrew Jackson. Let's not forget about that guy too," Bucky added and it seemed to win the other boy’s attention a little. What they were talking about was now over, and Bucky was ready to go back to his chair and leave him alone when the blonde boy decided to continue on whatever they were sharing. 

"How did you get this job? I'm kind of jealous. I'd love to work in a museum. And here? It's super fancy. You must be like, super art-smart to get in, right? You're probably studying art, am I wrong?" He was for sure bubbly. That's fine, Bucky could do with bubbly. 

"Friend of mine told me a bunch of places to apply for work at. I just sent a letter and the museum answered with a date for an interview. Then big plot twist, I actually got the job." He looked around, then got closer to the blonde boy, about to make a stupid mistake but at least it kept the conversation going, "I'm not majoring art, actually, can you keep a secret?" 

The boy's gaze was stuck on him and on the closeness he forced between them. "Depends. What kind of secret do you tell to someone you just met?"

"Maybe I trust you already." 

"I'll keep it, then," the boy said, the one without a name, and Bucky gave him his secret in a low voice. "I'm majoring in history. Not even history of art, nope, but war history. I don't know shit about art, and I got the job because I spent the day before reading everything I could find on Wikipedia." 

The other boy's jaw dropped with the surprise. "You don't know shit about art?" was all he seemed to be able respond. Bucky moved his head as an answer. "And you got this job. In an art museum. Without knowing anything?" Again, another movement. Blond boy stared at him. "We gotta change this quick. You have to know stuff- I mean, it's art, and art is- _art,_ you know?" Somehow art was super important to this boy. Bucky could understand, passion came from a lots of things, and art was one of these. 

"I mean, I know some stuff!" Bucky said, trying to protect himself in front of the boy. 

"Yeah but you should know more!" he said with excitement then he paused, thinking. "You're really interested in the tattoo story?" the boy asked him and Bucky needed a second before his mind reminded him of the gunshot tattoo. 

 

"Yeah, yeah, I do," he answered, not sure of what that had to do with what they were talking about just few seconds before. 

"Okay. Here's a deal for you. You learn stuff about art, and if you give me one fact that I didn't know, I'd tell you what my tattoo is for." 

Bucky laughed at the boy's proposition. "You sound like a 5 year old, gettin' fun outta anything that looks a tiny bit like a game," Bucky joked. 

"I know. Life is way better that way. Funnier, too." The boy smiled. "You in? Or not?" 

"Yeah, of course, I'm no fun-killer," Bucky said. "But maybe I should have your name. You have mine and it's gettin' tiring to call you 'boy' in my head." 

"Sure! I'm Steve." 

***

He did play Steve's game. He was getting some fun out of it, too, and he learned lots of stuff, but nothing Steve didn't know before. 

"Okay, see that paintin'?" he told him when they were watching _Les hazards heureux de l'escarpolette,_ also called The Swing in English. "So the girl is playin' on a swing, and she's helped by that boy in the back. But the dude is also playing her, because his friend, over there, is watching under the girl's robes."

"Thanks Bucky, I don't know what I would do if you didn't describe what I was seeing in front of me," Steve joked, to what Bucky answered, "Wait! That's not what I wanted to say.  
The guy over here," he showed the man looking at the girl's panties, "that guy, he's the one who ordered the painting. And guess what? He's a priest." Bucky finished, with a smile, sure to win the bet. Steve moved his head. 

"Yeah, I know." 

"Aaah, damnit," Bucky told him. 

"You'll try again next time!" he smiled at him as if it was his face's natural expression.

***

"The guy who took this picture really liked the girl who's on the picture," he tried to explain to Steve, while they were both staring at ‘Ingre's violin’ by Man Ray. "And like, she's super famous, and he was famous too because he's a good photographer, but she didn't want to pose for him. Don't know why, she just didn't. Then at some point he got her and she said yes for a picture. Since he was so obsessed with her, he made her look like a violin, yknow, if you look at that on her back, it's a violin." Bucky's finger trailed, not touching the glass that hid the picture behind it because he knew that the cleaning team would've killed him if he did. 

"Yeah, I know what a violin looks like, Bucky," Steve said in a laugh. 

"I'm not finished! He's obsessed with her, and he was like, damn, who is as obsessed with anything than I am with her? And he remembered that Ingres, that guy who painted for Napoleon and shit, was really into violins. I mean, for music, huh, not into-into violins. That's why he made her look like she was a musical instrument, because she's the violin to his Ingres, the passion to the passionate." Steve held a small smile on his lips, like he was watching a toddler telling him how air is important to breathe. 

"Ah, you're cute. But if you want to win you should tell me more than that. I knew it, learned it last year of high school. Teach' was a photography-lover, so I don't think you can beat me on anything that's related to photography." 

"Roh, fuck me." 

***

Their meetings weren't only in the museum. Of course, it was more frequent inside the institution because Bucky had to be there two days per week, and Steve seemed to make it his second home, but their life wasn't only there, which surprised Steve. 

"Bucky?" he heard a voice coming from behind him in the tramway. He wasn't sure it was true or if his ears were crying from the music he was listening to just few seconds before, but he took one earphone out to check. He turned around and Steve was there, in a too large white t-shirt with beige pants and a very, very large brown leather belt around his hips, holding the pants in place. The second earphone found it's way into Bucky's pocket. 

"Oh, hi Steve." They gave each-other a handshake. They were friends, it seemed, but maybe not there yet to hug each other, even if Bucky was someone who liked to touch - touching everyone that was a tiny bit close to him. That's what you get when you grew up with a big family and sisters. "How you doin'?" He asked. 

"I'm good! And you?" Steve answered and it already felt like fake small talk, which annoyed Bucky. 

"Yeah, I'm fine." That was it, that's how conversations ended when you cross someone you know - but not that much. Or maybe Bucky could try and start something. He took a breath in, then before his voice could even out a word, Steve was talking. 

"It's funny. The way you're dressed," he told him and Bucky looked at his own clothes, and he saw nothing weird; it was basic black pants and a black t-shirt that was, okay, maybe a size too small. He worked on his arms, why would he hide them, right? 

"Funny?" he asked, not sure of what Steve meant. Maybe it was because of what was written on his t-shirt, in a gothic font, saying "Dicke Bertha". That must be it. 

"You're not wearing a tuxedo. It's weird, my mind classified you as a tuxedo guy. But no, you're wearing normal clothes with some dumb war reference on it and, uh, it's too small by the way." Steve pinched his arm as he joked around.

"Yeah, well, I'm not the only one who doesn't know what my size is," he fired back with a grin on his lips, and he returned the touch by taking Steve's sleeve between his fingers.  
The boy faked a frown, "I'm working on it. I'll bet that once I have my operation, I'll kick your ass. No. Wait. I can already actually! Wanna brawl?" Steve told him and it didn't sound like it was a joke, or maybe it was, but only half of it. Bucky crossed his arms. 

"Sorry pal, but I think if we did there would be a clear winner,” he hushed him, but Steve just smiled. 

"I fought guys like you before." 

Bucky's eyebrows moved. "You won?" he asked. Steve laughed. 

"No, but I did throw a few punches. You should've seen the other guys." 

Bucky laughed. "Sure, sure." Steve was smiling when he offered Bucky to go take a coffee. 

"Are you going anywhere? Want to take a cup with me? There's this cool very hipstery coffee place next stop and my friend works there. He could sneak us some extra sugar, if you're the kind to drink coffee like teenage girls do." 

Bucky's eyes rolled. "Right. Let me guess, you're a 'I take only dark coffee' kinda guy." 

Steve shrugged. "Oh no, definitely not. Sugar is great, but I have to watch out for diabetes. My mom is diabetic, so there's a lot of risks for me too." He smiled and it was weird to smile when you talked about these kind of things but Steve seemed to be fine with talking about his health. Steve was frail and the first times Bucky saw him, he had short breath. 

Maybe he had a lot of problems and that's why he was used to explaining. 

"Next stop is mine, anyway, and it would be a lie to tell you I'm busy. I just need to buy some stuff for tonight's dinner, but it's not too late and there's a seven eleven next to my place." He paused. "Sam is really pissy when we eat too late, so I have like forty minutes free, if that's fine." Bucky smiled, thinking it was easier to play it cool and make it seem like he wasn't completely into the idea of staying a bit longer together.

"Cool. Coffee then?" Steve asked as he went to the subway's door. 

"Is it a date?" Bucky wondered, his voice half serious and half joking. Steve laughed directly. 

"Sure. If you call two friends around caffeine a date," he told him, and Bucky's hopes weren't crushed. Of course, it was a bit disappointing, but it's not like he was in love with the guy, he just found him cute in a way, and he seemed smart. Talking while drinking could make him learn many things about the other boy. He decided to change his face into a smirk, the one he kept for the ladies who joked with his capabilities to woo them (spoiler: he always won). 

"Oh, I'm your friend now?" 

"Of course. You know my name, I know yours, you probably see me more than you see your own mom," he started while counting on his fingers when Bucky interrupted him. "Yeah, because she lives in another city and you always show your ass where I work!" but Steve wasn't taking it and continued, "So you do see me more than your own mom, you say hi whenever I enter a room, you laughed at at least one of my jokes. That's friendship level one." Steve winked. 

"And how do I get to level two, then?" 

"Get that coffee with me," Steve told him.

"Sure Steve, but I already agreed." Bucky answered as they were escaping the subway. The blonde boy was walking just a bit faster than he did, probably from the need of showing him the way to the coffee shop. Bucky knew the neighbourhood, because he lived in it, and scanned all possible places to go. It would be funny if they decided to go to Clint's coffee. 

Which they were, as the path Steve took was going toward that particular building. When they entered, Bucky was already smiling as he was ready to see his friend. Of course Clint was working, because he seemed to work all the time. The two of them were frenemies, since Bucky used to be a barista too and they weren't working at the same place, it was a funny game between the two of them to play around. When it was Steve and Bucky's turn to order, Clint already had his eyes on them.

"Hi Bucky! Hi Steve!" he said casually, and Bucky frowned. Clint knew Steve? "I had no idea you two knew each other." Clint told them as he wrote Bucky’s usual order on a cup, because there was no need to ask what he wanted after all these years.

"We met in a museum," Steve told Clint. "I had no idea you two knew each other. And I'll take a black coffee with just a tiny tiny bit of milk."

"We jog together, and I'm his dogsitter," Bucky started before Clint added, "Oh, and we have this coffee war going on, but I won it when Bucky got fired."

"Wasn't fired. They said they were sad to let me go,” he fired back, but this only earned him laughter.

"That means you got fired, Bucky," Steve remarked.

"If it helps your ego, Kate told me the tips went down by a third after you left." Clint winked at Bucky who gasped. "Wait she never told me that!"

"Yeah, she wanted to, but our bird-lover said that your head was big enough. Bucky it's four dollars and Steve it's three fifty." Bucky offered in a gesture to pay for Steve, but the other boy didn't want to hear about Bucky's money. They both paid for their own drink.

"When I get home, I'm going to kill him. If the dude thinks my ego is too big, he can enjoy a bit too much tabasco in his food tonight, right?" he joked, but it wasn't exactly a joke.  
Neither Steve nor Clint knew that and they didn't need to know. Clint probably had a hint. 

"I'll call him later to know if he's still breathing. Now you two leave the line, I have other clients to treat, you guys aren't my only priority. Your number is here, take it and wait at the table, yada-yada, you know the drill," Clint said as he gave them a piece of plastic with the number twenty-one written on it.

They sat next to two teen girls wearing band t-shirts and one of them had really pretty eyes, Bucky thought, but he was with Steve and it's always a bad start to hint on someone else when you have the first date. Which wasn't a date, as Steve said. Well, friend-date. Steve was probably going to drive him wild before he could even put a word on what Bucky was feeling.

"So. You of'en take coffees with museum guardians?" Bucky asked him as a joke, but Steve answered seriously. 

"No, not usually. I had a few coffees with Sharon, but that's all." Sharon was one of his coworkers, a nice gal with pretty blonde hair. Bucky wondered if their coffees were friend dates or dates dates. For a second, and because of the people he hang out with, Bucky forgot that most people hadn't homosexual tendencies.

Like himself, actually. Or what he used to think.

Well, Steve in front of him was changing the answer to his own tendencies, but that was something he didn't want to think of. If feelings wanted to come, they would, and he'd go with the flow. Even if the flow means to suck dicks, that was okay. Weird and unusual for Bucky, but okay. Bucky was kind of proud that having a crush on a guy wasn't giving him a sexual crisis, and that he was taking the news with as much fucks he could give; none.

"Sharon is nice. I didn't know that you two knew each other," he told him and it sounded at lot like Clint earlier.

Steve blinked. "Bucky, I know everyone who works in the museum. Except you," he said before a boy arrived with their coffees, asking which one is for who, then took the numbered wood board with him.

"Except me? I thought we were friends level two. You're hurting my feelings, Steve," Bucky said and Steve smiled, showing a little teeth and Bucky noted that jokes were a thing that would give him more smiles like this one and that he should try to do some more often. Even if he was already joking around pretty much all the time, he could pepper some more into their conversations, because damn, those teeth were super white, the kind that could pass in a toothpaste advertisement.

"Yeah, we are. But yeah, I know everyone. Well, not the ones working in the office, but every guard." He took a sip of his coffee.

"That's a lotta people. How come?" Bucky asked.

Steve put down his cup, "Mom loves museums, and well, she sometimes plays music for events the museum does. Then I wanted to be an artist and she kept taking me there because everyone around us, the guards, they were like family, then I just made a second home there and college was asking us to make a lotta research about pretty much whatever we wanted to as long as it was art. So I got the free entrance card and now I'm not leaving it."

"Your mom is a musician?" Bucky asked and his hand was resting on the table, looking like it wanted to go closer to Steve every passing second. Suddenly Bucky realized that he was using the same moves on Steve that he would to woo a girl. Getting close but not too close, asking questions to made the other talk and watching them through his eyelashes and a kind smile hanging on his lips. He withdrew his hand, straightened his back and stopped looking at Steve with bedroom eyes. Thank god Steve was totally oblivious, because he saw nothing.

"Yeah, uh, not exactly. She and my dad used to play in a band. Not like rock band or anything, but they had a jazz group and it was very great. They made good money out of it, but my mother always wanted to help people so she decided to start college again and became a nurse. Which is better because the group couldn't hold together anymore for gigs. She still plays! But not like before. Oh god, I'm only talking about myself. Sorry, I ramble a lot when people get me started," Steve told him and Bucky let out a quiet chuckle.  
"It's fine. I wanted to know more about you." Smooth Bucky, too smooth. He should stop taking this like a date. “You were always in art, then?" Smoother.

"Yeah, pretty much. Ma' and dad were musicians, and they were like, big art lovers. So I grew up with a fake Egon Schiele over my child's bed, but don't worry it was the girl touching her shoe, not one of the sexual ones he made. And then I would read like art magazines, then ma' took me to so many museums and galleries. People usually like art. But art is literally my whole life. Always been and don't want it to change."

Bucky couldn't relate. Of course, his parents took him and his sisters to museums, but not that much. They preferred the zoo better. Between them was a giant contrast, of one who is made by art, and the other one who didn't know how he should enjoy it.

"And not to sound sappy, but that's when you came into my life. I met people who didn't like art before, that's normal. Most people think it's only for elites and get on their high horses to criticize it, mostly photography. But you're not like that. You just don't know about it. You don't know what art is, what it can brings into you. That's what makes you so interesting. You're a blank page on which we could write whatever we want. We just have to find a pen."

That was way smoother than any words Bucky could ever align. Bucky breathed out. It's like they were playing this game, in which they're not flirting but they're on the line of it.

"Poetic. Even though I'd like to write my own story, thank you very much." Bucky said and it sounded less mean in his head than out of his mouth, and when Steve's smile flattered, he added, "But you can scribble in my margins, if you want to." This was grade A+ flirting. Too bad this wasn't a date.

"It's funny, if you think about it. I think you're interesting because you know a lot about art, and you think I am because I don't know shit about it." Bucky took a sip of his drink, and continued his idea, "I wanted to know how a person is when their life is ruled by art, and you seem to be intrigued to know how it is without."

"Difference either brings fear or curiosity," Steve said with a wide smile. "Which leads me to ask, why are you studying history?"

Bucky blushed. Not because he was flustered, but because the reason was stupid. "Uhhh, it's, really, really ridiculous," he started, "I, uh, I didn't know what to do actually. My parents weren't the kind who wanted to force me into law or medicine. They were like, oh darlin' do what you want. But I didn't know what I wanted. I guess I would've enjoyed engineering but I didn't want to work in that field. So I spent like a year with an existential crisis, not knowing what I wanted. All I knew was that I wanted to move and have my own place with other pre-adults and that meant leaving to another place. Then at some point I was eating with my friends from Indiana, and uh, we were gossiping." He paused, and rubbed the back of his neck. "That's something I really like, I know it sounds stupid, but I love knowing what everyone is up to, because that's super interesting. I love people and their lives and stuff ? Then Morita just said out of the blue, Bucky, if you like gossiping that much you should do history. Because history is basically gossip but with dead guys. That's it. That's why I took that path. I know, stupid, right?" 

Steve laughed. "That's surprising, not stupid. Which year you in ?"

"I'm in my third. I still have to pick my master, but I think I'll go and specialize in history of war, like I told you." Bucky told him.

Steve winced. "I thought you were already specializing in history of war?"

"Uh, not exactly. When you're in the first three years, you only specialize for the period, and I decided to do contemporary times and antiquity, because that's where the interesting wars happened." Bucky smiled; it was great to geek out a bit about history. That's probably how Steve felt when they were talking about art together, he realised.  
"How about the Crusades? During the Middle Ages?" Steve pointed out and suddenly Bucky bit his lip. That's a good question. 

"I didn't like the teacher, he kind of was an asshole and I surely didn't want him the direct my seminars."

Steve smiled in a way that said 'yeah, I understand, same,' and silence fell between them. The silence felt good and bad at the same time, because it was refreshing for new subjects to talk about but heavy with everything that wasn't said with words.

"I want to know," Bucky started, afraid of leaving silence who would brought more than he was ready to say, "Is there drama and gossip in art ?"

Steve, who was sipping on his drink gently, almost choked. "Are you kidding me? Artists are so dramatic. They gotta live that way or they die for the drama. Of course there's drama and gossip. You probably already know about Van Gogh, huh? That's some drama at it's best." 

"Uhm!" Bucky tried to speak as he swallowed a sip of coffee, "Yeah! Dude cut his ear to give it to his cousin or sister because he loved her, right?" 

Steve laughed. "That's fake, actually! He had this kind of contest against Gaugin and he was so upset about it that he cut his ear and gave it to a prostitute." Steve bit his bottom lip as he was playing with it. Bucky wished there was a 'please stop this' button. He must have been in his head for more than the seconds that were approved in a two-way conversation, because Steve's eyebrows lift up in question. 

"Oh, yeah, that's weird." Right. Best answer Bucky, best answer. Not awkward at all.

Steve didn't mind. Maybe he was too excited about art to leave this opportunity fly away with Bucky's frail words. "And like, there's Anish Kapoor. This is some A+ drama. He's the guy who made The Bean. You know The Bean?"

"You mean The Beanery? The weird bar-thing in the museum? Ugh." Bucky asked. He hated that artwork. It made him uncomfortable. Steve frowned. 

"No, no, The Bean. The giant mirror in Chicago that looks like a bean." He explained and his teeth weren't playing with his lip anymore. Oh, Bucky knew what he was talking about now. He nodded as Steve continued, "So. Anish Kapoor created that. The dude is so rich that he bought the Vantablack, which is basically the blackest black to ever exist, which was created by scientists. Pretty cool shit. But what he did was that he took exclusivity with it, so no one could use it. That's not cool."  
Steve was really into art, fuck. 

"And then Stuart Semple, another artist, who used a few years to create the pinkest pink, decided that everyone could buy it, but they gotta sign a paper that says that they're not Kapoor, or associated with Kapoor, or that they're not going to give the color to Kapoor." Steve took his phone out of his pocket, tapped a few words, then showed it to Bucky.  
"And Kapoor did this." 

It was an instagram post, showing a middle finger showered in pink, with written 'up yours' just below. Bucky winced. "Ouch." Steve's hand reached his own phone, placing it above Bucky's hand, looking at him right in his eyes. "That's not everything! Stuart created the world's most glittery glitter, which is made from tiny bits of glass, so he's basically saying 'hey dude, try to put your finger in this one!'" 

It would've been so romantic to say that Bucky wasn't listening to what Steve was saying because of the heat given from their hands touching, but that would've been a lie too. Steve was interesting, and no matter how distracting his hand above Bucky's was, it couldn't win over the words he was sharing. 

Bucky realized that even with all the gestures Steve pulled without realizing them, the cute girl sitting at the table beside them, the sound of Clint making jokes with clients, everything that could distract him in a second, Steve's words were more interesting. Because the guy knew what he was talking about, he was passionate. That made him more attractive than ever. 

"Then he made a video, here, look," his hands were still over Bucky's but this time they were trying to reach for the phone, "this is a video of him with his fingers making a peace sign, while having something that looks like Vantablack on them." 

So this is what an art nerd looks like when he gets passionate about it, Bucky thought. It's cute. 

"Have you bought the pink?" Bucky asked, and Steve frowned. "Nope, but I have some glittery glitter at my place. My roommate was against the pink." Bucky laughed.

"What a puss." Steve joined him in his laugh. "Yeah, she's everything except a puss, but I guess being against pink is kind of stupid." 

Bucky, without a phone in his hands to play with, joined them and started touching his own fingers anxiously. "You really like art, don't ya?" Bucky asked and it's so obvious that it's almost hurting him to say such a stupid sentence, but Steve gave him that kind of smiles that people use when they're about to show you a picture of their cat, and his fear was washed away.

"Yeah. My whole life is about it, I think. I like art and it likes me back, I hope." A chuckle gets out. "My life revolves around art. Y'know, having a Schiele over your head when you sleep? My picnic box had Alphons Mucha's art on it, hell, we had a cat for two days before my allergies tried to kill me who was named Rimbaud. When art shapes everything you do, you think about it all the time. That's how I knew my first kiss would be in front of The Kiss by Klimt." 

Bucky laughed. "So romantic. It really happened?" 

Steve bit his lip. "Uhm. Kind of. Not exactly. You weren't supposed to ask me that. You were supposed to trust me," he rambled and played with his own hands. 

Bucky placed a grin on his lips, "You weren't supposed to lie, then." Great, the flirty tone again.

"I wasn't lying! It happened. Not in front of the real painting. It, uh, happened, in front of my phone background who was The Kiss. I couldn't afford the ticket plane to Vienna and go like, oh, sorry to ruin the moment, how about we wait to land in Europe before we lip-lock?" That earned a laugh from both sides of the table. 

"Well, I hope for you that your last kiss will be in front of it, then. And not in front of your phone, gross." Steve showed Bucky his tongue. He took his coffee between his two hands and it was empty, that meant that the friends-date was over soon. He looked at the time and it assured it that it should end right now, if he wanted to make food on time for the others. 

"Oh shit. I gotta go Steve, Sam's gonna kill me if I'm late." 

Steve nodded. "Sure. It was great, we can do that again sometime, if you want to." 

It was Bucky's time to nod, and as they left and said goodbye to Clint, he told Steve: "How do you feel about the fact that this was basically a Californian scene?" Steve frowned, and Bucky realized that not everyone knew what that meant. 

"A Californian scene, in books, is when two people who don't know each other go, take a coffee, and start talking about themselves. It's easy to write because there's nothing else around, so the characters are forced to talk each other. It's lazy writing." Bucky explained as Steve laughed. 

"So you're saying that our lives are lazy writing?" he asked, and Bucky moved his head to answer positively. 

"Well, it would be if we were in a book."

***

"Did he draw you?" Bucky asked Sharon. 

"Yeah, of course. Multiple times. Not you?" 

"No, not really. 'Can't blame him, art looks so much better than this ol' face."

***

Bucky was on his sixth try for the tattoo-contest when Steve taught him something. He tried to surprise Steve with informations on The Swing, Ingre's Violin, even if Steve told him that photography was out of the question he still tried to surprise him with some information on the famous 'Raising a flag over the Reichstag' by Yevgueni Khaldei. At least he learned that it was a manipulated picture when he was in his World War II lecture at college, but it was a failure, so was the moment he explained that this weird half animal half human on this Hieronymus Bosch's painting was a way to represent indulgences, some shitty thing the Church did to win more money, but Steve smiled once more and told him that it was basic knowledge for him. Then he tried to tell him that even if everyone found that _La persistència de la memòria_ by Dali was very poetic and mostly the clocks were telling how time was melting quickly, but the reality was less poetic; Dali saw some cheese melt and he found it pretty, hence the weird clocks. Again, it wasn't a surprise to Steve. 

"Hi Steve," he said when he saw him. He always took pride in the fact that when they were talking, it wasn't impacting his work, he was always ready to see if anyone was trying to touch the paintings, or worse, steal them, and always watched out for the tone of his voice, so he wouldn't talk too loud. 

"Hi Buck," Steve said back, turning his eyes away from the artwork he was watching. Bucky couldn't stay long because he wasn't supposed to guard this room and was on his way to change the place he stays for the next hour and a half, but saying hi didn't hurt anyone. Plus, the person who guarded the contemporary section of the museum right now was cool and seemed to like Bucky enough to leave him be for a second. His name was Stan and he was way too old to keep working, but apparently he worked in the museum since day one and didn't want to quit. 

Bucky glared at the art Steve was watching, which was a mix between graphism and a picture. It was mostly black and white, with a little of red in it. You could see a picture of a boy flexing and a girl touching his biceps with surprised eyes. _'We don't need another hero'_ said the painting (which, from Bucky's opinion, couldn't be called a painting, okay it was art, but it wasn't painted, right?). The artist was Barbara Krueger and Bucky knew that he knew that typo, that way to write. 

There was a red rectangle with white words. Oh! He knew where it came from. It was the written the same way as _Supreme_ , the t-shirt skateboard related industry. Bucky laughed. "I didn't know that art was stealing typography from famous bands," he whispers to Steve who needed a second before he understood what Bucky was telling him. When his mind did the work, he smiled pathetically and facepalmed. 

"Yeah, uhm, that's Barbara Krueger's work. She created the font. Supreme stole it and made millions with it. Which is sad, because Barbara Krueger's work is mostly against capitalism. But yeah, it does look good on a shirt, I guess," Steve told him. 

"Oh." Bucky felt stupid. 

"It's fine, you didn't know. I really like what she does. In Amsterdam she did this thing with stairs and she wrote on it, and one of the sentences makes me think of you now," Steve started and Bucky's heart skipped a beat, then started up again just a tiny bit faster, not too much, just enough to be noticed. 

When he thought of Steve, Bucky wasn't sure of what was going on. Of course he still had the ruins of the crush he had on him when they had met the first time, but something else was now built at that place. It was something like a mansion, full of rooms and not enough keys to open all the doors. At first, Bucky had so much interest in Steve because of his looks, because he was, well, at first, a cute _girl,_ but with the revelation of him not being female and him being very smart and intellectual, the crush changed. It wasn't passion, or envy, or lust, but interest. He wanted to know what was going on in his mind, what Steve thought of this or that, how Steve felt at the moment, wanted to hear more well-placed sentences that only him had the power to create. 

Bucky hoped it was the beginnings of love. He wasn't sure, and it was way too fast to be in love - but he hoped that he could make himself fall for someone important, someone special, someone who held the world in a way the others didn't. Steve had such a big link with art that it was hard to see him like others. In a museum, Steve could be invisible, because he could pass for art. 

It wasn't love, not yet. But it was something, and no one could take that away from Bucky. Their little knowledge game got them together twice a week, for a hour or so, a moment that was theirs and no one else's. Bucky and Steve were strangers to each other but strangers who talked to each other and laughed at each other's jokes and discuss about politics and the books they had to read for their classes and their parents and their works.

They were friends, actually. That's the word. 

Bucky thought that he could settle for that. Being Steve's friend. He didn't need more, not for the moment. Maybe he was in love with Steve, but in a friend way. His mind wasn't telling 'woaw, I really want him under me,' but 'woaw, I really want to hear him rant about that Belgian artist no one knows about for hours'. With some people, you just clicked. 

Like Bucky and Sam clicked, like Teddy and Billy clicked. Steve clicked with him too. 

"The sentence was: In the end, you've had your chance, in the end, you lose or you win," Steve continued, "and right now you're losing. It's like you're not even playing our game, because I keep winning every time. You're so bad at it. You'll never know my tattoo secret." Steve stuck his tongue out.  
"Punk. I'm going to win. Today's fact will surprise you, I'm sure." 

"Right. Tell me, I have to leave soon, Ma's waiting for me for dinner," Steve told him, and Bucky opened his phone to check the time. 

"It's five thirty. You don't eat at five,” he pointed out. 

"Yeah, but you do start to buy groceries and then make food. Not everyone has a mom who makes them food all the time, mine has to work 'till late. Nurse and all, I told you," he explained and Bucky started to explain more from his own life. 

"Yeah, sure, but you know that I'm not living at my parent's place anymore," he smirked, "unlike others!" Steve groaned. 

"Jerk. I'm sure you're not the one making food. The time when you said you had to cook for Sam? Fake. Or even better, you're eating frozen pizzas all the time and ramen."

Bucky closed his lips in a thin line. "Well, Teddy is better than me at making dinner. But we all have days to cook, Sam does Monday, Tuesday, Billy does Wednesday and Thursday, I do Friday and Sunday while Saturday is take out day. So I'm not so lame at it." 

"You said Teddy's better, but he doesn't have any days?" Steve pointed. 

"Oh yeah, he's not supposed to live with us, yknow, but he's here all the time and Billy makes it look like they're having one of these cute 'we're making dinner together' activities while he's just watching Teddy do everything while eating a carrot in a very seductive way." 

His joke pulled a laugh from Steve and Bucky knew his day was going well. Too bad he really had to work. 

"Okay, follow me to the room I have to guard or Stan will stab me if you laugh that loud one more time," he told him, putting a hand on Steve's back to push him towards another part of the museum. "We'll stop by the cubism place first." 

"If today's information is about Picasso, I'm sorry pal, but I probably know it already." Fuck, Bucky thought.

"Fuck." Bucky said. 

Steve's eyes narrowed. "I can't believe you thought you could surprise me over Picasso. Literally EVERYONE knows everything about Picasso." 

"Yeah, okay, but I liked the painting," Bucky said and Steve stopped walking. 

"I thought you didn't like art?" 

Bucky shrugged. "Can't say something isn't pretty when it's just in front of your eyes, yknow? And it's not that I don't like art, I just don't care that much. Well, it's changing, no thanks to you." 

Steve let out another laugh, it was quieter this time. "Yeah, all thanks to me. Come on, which one do you like?" 

Bucky pointed out a painting. The colors were mostly pink, or at least pastel. It was a representation of girls, all naked, in different positions. "So you have a thing for _Les Demoiselles d'Avignon_!" Steve said and Bucky burst out laughing. 

"You have the worst french accent ever." 

Steve hushed him quickly. Bucky liked the paintings with girls. Art seemed to appreciate bodies, and that's something Bucky enjoyed too. He still had some problems with new art and when it wasn't a representation of someone, but the rest was starting to please him, please his eyes. He really was in love with people, and so was art, so it was easy to slowly fall for art. He started to explain today's info. "So. This painting is about prostitutes. There was this place that Picasso used to go to, with prostitutes and like he knew 'em well and then at some point he got scared, because of syphilis. Because they could've given that to him."

Steve looked at him like Bucky showed him the sun and said, "this is where light comes from," with an expression caught between a laugh and pity. 

"Wait, I'm not done. I may surprise you! This one, over here. And this one too." He showed him two of the girls, the one with weird triangular noses. "It's inspired by African art. In Europe at that time, they had a lot of African art thanks- well, more because - of the colonies. It was super cheap and cubism artists were really in awe in front of that kind of art. They thought that Africans had no limits to their art, no rules. This is inspired by a Pende mask. See the noses? That's an African representation of someone who's dying. The mask is usually black and white, representing life and death, and how sickness affects you in both." 

Steve looked at him like he told him an entire poem. Maybe this one was it, maybe after four weeks, six tries, maybe he won. 

"I thought you were going to stop at the prostitute story." He told him, and Bucky saw the look Steve's giving him. Bucky knew that he was attractive, thanks to his Ma' telling him compliments all the time, and how girls lingered on his eyes and lips longer than a simple look should've last, or how much Billy groaned when Bucky said he would throw that shirt away because 'it's too small'. Bucky knew he was attractive, but right now, Steve was watching him like it didn't matter between them. 

Bucky overanalyzed everything, but fuck that. He could afford some daydreaming. Steve's eyes were telling Bucky that right now, he was attractive because he was _smart._ He felt pride because that was what made him so interested in Steve, it was his mind and the way it worked, and now the tables have turned. The silence lasted a second more than it should've, and Bucky said nothing. He shouldn't make assumptions on what Steve was thinking, but it was so satisfying to do so. 

"I know the Pende mask part. But well done," Steve finally told him, and Bucky wondered if he was lying so their game could go on for a few more weeks. Probably not, Steve wouldn't lie, he wasn't like that. 

"Oh right, I guess you'll be obligated to hear another fact that you already know about next week then," Bucky said and Steve smiled. 

"Yeah Buck. See you" he was about to leave when he turned around. "No wait, next week I won't be here. I'm getting a heart operation on Monday." 

Bucky's eyes must have startled, because Steve's hands went on his shoulder, "Don't worry. It will be fine, I won't die, yada-yada. They're trying to cure my arrhythmia," Steve said and Bucky smiled. 

"Bless you," Bucky told him. 

"I didn't sneeze?" Steve asked. 

"Oh you didn't? The words you used sounded like a sneeze. Sorry," Bucky answered with a grin, which earned him a gentle hit on the shoulder from Steve. 

"I hope I die, that way I'll never hear any of your lame jokes."

Bucky's eyes rolled. "Right. See you in two weeks."

*** 

Bucky knew that you couldn't miss something you never had. Never felt it? It's fine, you won't miss it. That's how it went: you had to taste the cake to want more. But weirdly enough, when Steve wasn't around, his company wasn’t missed. Not because Bucky didn't care at all, because that was very false, but maybe because he wasn't sure who they were to each other, or more simply because he was so sure that they would meet again. A whisper was telling him this, when it was late night and he was occupied with looking at his ceiling, searching for the answers to the universe. Yeah, Bucky was that deep. 

Attraction, that was funny. Bucky didn't understand why he liked some of his friends that much, and how they happened to meet in a sea of too many people, but he somehow did. 

He'd heard about that Chinese legend, the one that said that you were linked to your soulmates by a red string, and he thought it could be even cooler if the soulmates weren't only romantic ones. It was weird, in a way, because Bucky was so in love with romantic movies and romantic tropes, but he cared deeply for friendship, maybe more than he did with love. People were complex and that was one of his complexities, almost a paradox sleeping inside his thoughts. That's why soulmate had another signification to him, as if it was so much more than two persons kissing. He wouldn't be surprised if his fingers were somehow linked to Sam's, and maybe to Steve's. 

He's sure the reason why he was so sappy at the moment was the stupid romantic comedy he caught Kate and America watching. (By caught, Bucky meant: he heard the two girls talking about it a few days ago, and he asked if he could watch it with them. They said yes in a giggle). 

That's what brought him to think of Steve, and how much he didn't miss him, very surprisingly. Another reason would be that he was thinking of Steve so much that it was almost as if he was by his side most of the time. Instead of having some sort of sorrow emptying his mind of happy thoughts, like people usually have when their newest crush disappeared, he was living it very nicely. Steve being away meant a promise, because the last time they saw each other, they didn't say goodbye. Not yet. They said 'see ya', and that counted as something. 

Instead of being sad and waiting for a day that took too much time to come, he listed facts about art. He hadn't forgot about their little game, their little dare, and the reward he would get if he won. 

***

Steve came back, of course, a few weeks after he said he'd be back. 

They were so happy to see each other that they didn't even play their little game. They just talked about their last weeks, Steve telling him that he'd started to go to the gym, now that he’d had his operations, plural. That surprised Bucky, but Steve revealed that three months before he had his lungs fixed because of his bad asthma. He also told him that of course, surgery couldn't completely fix asthma, that nothing could, but it was better than nothing. 

"You'll never beat me, you're still so small and frail. And a few inches shorter." Bucky told him as he played with Steve's hair to annoy him. 

"Yeah, well, we will see. Catch me in a few months, asshole." Steve winked and Bucky was surprised with how much confidence Steve had in this tiny body. "I started working out, I think I'll be able to beat your ass way quicker than you planned. I had no money to pay a personal trainer but some guy, who actually turned out to be my roommate's boyfriend, took pity on me and decided to help me out with my program. Now we're friends," Steve told him with a smile.

"I can't believe people want to be friends with you." Bucky joked. 

Steve stuck his tongue out. "Yeah, what does it make you? Some stupid guard who uses most of his free time texting me?" 

"You're wrong. I only talk to you because you're everyone's favorite in the museum. If we're not friends, I'm quickly fired. So I fake it until I make it, y'know?" He winked at Steve. 

"Which means, I'm your favorite?" 

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Keep thinking that. I gotta work,” he said as he sat down on his very uncomfortable chair that the guards had when they wanted to cool down a bit. 

Steve followed him, not leaving his feet. He placed his hands on Bucky's knees. "I thought you were already working right now?" His voice was low, and that was normal, because being in a museum asked to speak in a low voice, but it triggered Bucky's mind in a 'flirt or fight' response. 

"Oh, I am, but I need to study too. Finals are in two weeks. Don't you need to study?" He took a book out of his bag, one that was on decolonization, for his contemporary times class. Bucky was glad that the museum let him study while working, because that saved him so much time. Steve's hands were still pressing against Bucky's knees and that was, if you exclude the movie-cuddling session he had with Kate and America the other day, the more romantic thing that happened to him in months. 

(Now, watching sappy movies was a recurring thing. It happened every Wednesday after dinner. They called it maromanthons, a nice mix between marathon and romantic).

"I have to study, but I have to draw. Projects and stuff," Steve said, a bit lost. 

"Like 'and stuff' could tell me what you have to do," Bucky joked, and Steve seemed surprised by the attention he was getting. Maybe he wasn't so used to be asked so many questions. 

"I have to draw people. The theme is either underappreciated beauty. But everyone looks great, so I don't really know what to do with such a theme." 

"You could draw me," Bucky offered and immediately regretted it, because he knew how much 'oh please draw me!' was annoying for artists. 

Steve was still holding a smile with his lips, rolling his eyes, "Like I haven’t already."

Oh?

"You did?" 

Steve took a deep breath. "Yeah. I had homework that said to draw the jerkiest jerk to ever jerk, so of course, I thought of you," he joked around and Bucky let out a quiet laugh, pushing Steve's hands so he couldn't rest on his knees anymore. It was a way to annoy him back. 

"To tell you the truth, I never drew you," he shrugged, as if it wasn't his choice or his fault. 

"Well, that makes me the definition itself of underrated beauty," Bucky tried to explain, but Steve was looking him with 'don't you dare bullshit me' eyes, so he stopped his sentence. 

"Fuck you. You're like, the definition itself of 'dark, tall, handsome, will take your girl back to his place when you're not looking'". 

"Hey, I don't steal girls. I'm a good guy," Bucky said, and Steve's smile softened. 

"Yeah, I know, it was a test, somehow. I'll draw you for that project, but you can't be mad at me for what I'll do. The ugly that will lie in my drawings? It will be 100% you." He winked and Bucky was amazed by Steve's confidence. He was confident himself, but it was remarkable to see it on someone else. 

"Yeah. As long as I get to see what you'll do." 

***

Bucky didn't see the drawings Steve made of him. Sometimes, he wondered if the whole assignment was made with someone else, because Steve never talked about it ever again, and he didn't really spent time lurking at Bucky's figure and traits. An artist needs inspiration, right, and observation, but Steve didn't use what he had in front of him. That was fine, he wasn't disappointed, because he kind of felt like he forced his own idea to Steve. 

"Hey, did tiny annoying blond guy ever draw you before?" he whispered to Sharon when she was changing rooms with him, a few days before his last exam. She gave him an eyebrow raise as an answer. 

"Oh, you mean taller-than-you and really kind blond guy that's called Steve? You haven’t seen him for a few weeks, have you?" she asked, but it was purely rhetorical so she quickly continued. "Yeah, of course. He didn't draw you?" She turned her heels. Damn, Bucky wanted to wear heels just so he could look as great and sassy. 

She was right, he hadn’t seen Steve in a long time. It has been more than a month, and suddenly it felt like a lot, but they were texting back and forth so it was like they were right next to each other. Bucky had so little time, because when he wasn't working in the museum he was either in the library studying, or in his bed reading the lectures he had to know for his exams. Steve had exams too - well, he called them projects, so that must mean a lot of drawings and paintings, but after checking his schedule on his university's website (he swore, it wasn't stalking, he was just curious of what kind of class you had when you took art), he saw that he had a lot of theoretical classes that needed textbooks. 

In Bucky's mind, textbook = exam. 

Maybe he was wrong, okay, but Steve wasn't here to tell him. He could just text him to ask. No, he'll look way too interested. Oh, fuck that, friends are interested in their friend's exams.

If he followed Sharon's words, Steve grew up. Did he really? Or was it a joke concerning the fact that he goes to the gym waaaay more than Bucky does anymore? Because come on, okay, it's been a few days, maybe a few weeks since his last run in the park, and yes, he's not sure he's going to renew his trial at the gym. Not that Sam would let him cancel that, especially when summer was around the corner. Will that mean that he'll go to the gym with Steve? Man, that could be really fun to annoy him there too. And maybe stick harder goals than he used to, to show Steve who's the big guy. He's not sure Sam and Steve will go along, but well, he can't help but want to mix his old friends with his new ones, new ones being Steve.

He hoped Sam will like Steve, and that Steve will like Sam.

***

Just after his last exam, Bucky had to work. Sharon had exams too, and one was falling on that evening. So they split that day between the two of them; Sharon worked the morning at the museum so Bucky could go and try not to fail at 'Europe's Political History'. Once he was done, he came into the museum and he took the rest of the day so she could, too, try not to fail whatever she was studying. Bucky's not sure, but he had this memory of her telling him that she's in Criminology. He wasn't 100% sure though.

Steve came into the museum. It was so refreshing to see him (because yes, it may be hard to hear, but Steve was cuter than the History books he had to read), plus it has been almost two months since they last saw each other. And damn, the boy was now ripped.

Bucky thought Sharon made a joke on Steve's looks, but he did grow up, like a good few inches, and there's probably a good reason behind that, a medical reason that made sense. Or, Steve took some supersoldier serum and suddenly looked super hot. Yeah, that could also be an answer to how much he changed. But it was still the old Steve he knew, his old dorky friend that liked art too much for his own good, the one that looked like a girl (god, no one will ever mistake Steve for a girl now, not with that physique), the one that had this obsession with The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. 

"Oh wow. It's almost as if you're not the same person," Bucky murmured as Steve came close to him. "It's crazy, how you changed." 

Steve smiled, showing his pure white teeth with pride. "Yeah, told you that one day I'd be able to fight you in an alley. Wanna do it now?" As he said this, he elbowed Bucky gently. 

"God no. You'll win for sure. It's been a while since I’ve done anything sporty, so it's a hard pass. I really should get back to it now that you look, uh, out of some olympian competition, Sam would be very happy to see me back under the weights. Dude keeps annoyin' me to get back to it. And maybe he'll stop telling me his girlfriend can kick me. Which she can, because that girl is psycho." 

Steve's smile was still present, but flattered as he started to think. "Wait, Sam what?” He was still whispering because that was what being in a museum asked to do. 

"Sam, my roomie. Wilson," Bucky answered, making it sound like a question. 

"I know Sam. We're friends. He's dating Nat, my roommate," Steve just blurted out. 

Their lives were really connected. "Our lives are really connected," Bucky pointed, but we could connect them more, he wanted to add as his romantic mind tried to woo Steve again. Just because somehow, his mind was wired to talk that cheesy. 

"Yeah, our lives really are." Steve answered, like repeating his own sentence could be an answer. 

Bucky was guarding the abstract room today, and he really wasn't used to being here. Usually it was Sharon's work, but well, her exam had her away for the moment. He was clearly ready to win Steve's game, because these few weeks apart gave him time to search info on art. He had this cool thing (well, by cool, pretty much creepy, but still impressive as hell) on Vladimir Poutine, made by Maxim Komar-Myshkin, who thought his leader was spying on him, or this super nice painting made by Ernest T, an exact replica of a Mondrian - but it was just to mock people who only love art for the names that will usually stand behind it. 

Or maybe that Belgian artist that recreated this whole digestive system - his artwork being able to eat and poop every hour (and yes, people did buy his shit, literally, that made Sam laugh a good ten minutes when Bucky told him about it). 

Or that guy in France who hated Christmas and created a giant butt plug to make it look like it was a Christmas tree, and exposed it in the middle of Paris. So much for the city of love. That was the kinda thing that Billy loved, because it was somehow political. He used to say that he enjoyed art when it had a story, an explanation behind it, way more than when it was only for the beauty of it.

Sam liked art because it was normal to. Billy liked art when it meant something. Bucky liked art because it showed humans, and Bucky loved humans. Steve liked art because he was art itself. 

"I think you're art," Bucky tells Steve because the air smells warm, because they're right next to each other for a while, both lost in their thoughts. For once, the museum seems warm.

When Steve is there, it was like the air conditioning stopped working. Maybe that was because Bucky's heart got warmer. Not with passion, or lust, but with interest. With questions. With his want to understand more, more about art, more about Steve, more about what he thinks art is. And for once, it's not the blond one who is giving the answer to that question, but Bucky. 

"What?" Steve asked, disturbed. 

"I think that's what you are. You're art. You make me feel like someone looking at a painting. This is horribly cheesy, I'm sorry," he told him, and the silence in the museum wasn't unremarked anymore. It felt like a problem. Steve looked at Bucky with his mouth open, like he needed to get air between his thin lips, because somehow his nose stopped working along his lungs. 

"That's so romantic," he finally answered, "I bet you get a ton of girl with pretty words like these." 

"I do." But that's not the point, he wanted to tell him that is wasn't what he meant. He didn't want to woo Steve. Not now. He was just telling the truth. "Girls and I go well. Because we all dream of romantic and cheesy sentences. I just happen to tell these out loud, I guess," Bucky said, and it seems like an explanation he should've given before, and that right now he needed to tell him something else, something among the lines, yknow, I'm not trying to get in your pants. Or whoever pants. I just wanted to tell you that you are art, because people are art, and you seem to be a hella of a pretty painting, Steve, but he doesn't say anything, because it would seem like he's trying too hard. 

He wished you could say nice things to people without making it look that you're in love with them. Of course, he liked Steve, way more than he’s ever liked a guy, but is this love?  
"It's funny. That you say this," Steve mused and maybe Bucky wasn't too insensitive, or too sensitive in his words because Steve seems to continue the conversation he thought he broke. "This is going to be extremely personal but it seems so easy to open to you. Maybe it's the way you hold yourself. I don't know. You'd be a great psychologist, Buck." 

Bucky laughed. 

Steve continued. "It's funny that you say that because, uh, usually art is created by a person. A human. It doesn't exists, or it does but in form of materials and ideas, and a person shapes it. It's always like that; artist creates art. Not the other way 'round, right? But with my life surrounded by my parents making music, taking me to museums, make me read art books, follow art classes and encouraging me to take an artistic path, I feel like it's the other way around. Uh, like, art created me, shaped me into who I was. Art created the artist for once." There was a pause in Steve's words. 

"That's why it's funny that you say I'm art. Because my whole life revolves around art and I think you're right, in a way. Maybe not the same way you think I am, but it's true." 

Bucky smiles. He shouldn't answer because nothing could ever make up for the things he thinks. 

Bucky wanted to tell him that he was art in a way he’s never come across, because he was alive, and that he was art because his eyes were giving life to paintings, sculptures, drawings. He was art because whenever his eyes started to analyze something with little interest, like he did once or twice with Bucky as if he wanted to find any kind of flaw who could characterize him, he translated life into art. Steve was like a pencil, or an alphabet, he was the in-between real world and ideas. But Bucky had no idea of how to explain this. 

He was only good with cheesy lines, not deep thoughts. He did what he knows he's good at. 

He used humor to cover his tracks, "Damn, I was just sayin' you were sculpted like Adonis dude." 

Steve's eyes were watching him closely as the corners of his mouth formed a large smile, the ones that showed teeth and all. He gave him a shitty hit with the back of his hand."You're such an asshole. I hate you."

Bucky shrugged. "Nah you don't."

Steve rolled his eyes but his smile was telling Bucky that he was lying. The air became warmer as Bucky watched him searching for words to add, "Okay, what's today's fact?" he eventually asked. 

Bucky licked his lips in thought, searching which info to give out right now. "Did ya know that On Kawara used to send-" He started but Steve interrupted him.

"-to send letters to his friends and galleries to say 'I AM STILL ALIVE'?" he finished sticking his tongue out. "Yeah I know." His voice was lower. "But did you know," he added as his eyes seemed to lose whatever could make them look like little suns, "that in 2009, he started a twitter account, tweeting "I AM STILL ALIVE #art" everyday?" 

Their eyes locked. Whenever this happened, it felt like they were too close for two best friends, but not close enough for lovers. "He tweeted that, everyday, then he died. In 2014."  
A pause. "But he wasn't the one tweeting. It was a bot. And the bot kept tweeting and tweeting and tweeting that somehow, On Kawara was still alive. Weird enough, right?"  
"I didn't know." Bucky tells him. He really wished he did, to impress Steve. Even if he knows that it's not needed to impress Steve. "Boèce said it. If you try to be famous, you'll die twice. You die when your body does, but also when people forget about you." He may not be the best at art, but he did have some knowledge in history and philosophy. "On Kawara isn't dead, not yet." 

Steve smiled. "No, he isn't." 

"Speaking of Kawara, I remember you standing in front of some of his paintings here. The ones with the date written on it? It was a while ago. We weren't friends yet, and you still looked like," Bucky imitated a small person, "like this, yknow?" 

Steve let out a simple laugh, "Oh yeah. Your museum has the 4th of July painting, and November '71. Those two are pretty much important for me." Bucky asked questions as he raised his eyebrow, and Steve knew he had to tell more. "My birthday is the 4th. And my parents met in November 1971. That's why they mean something to me." 

Bucky laughed, "Lookat' ya', the most american product ever produced!" 

Steve shrugged, "Still the son of immigrants. Some people wouldn't even consider me American I guess. Bullshit." Bucky laughed. Their discussion always ended in politics or talking about something they read, saw, watched, heard. That was how they worked out their little thing. 

***

And then the final date happened. It was after Steve's birthday, Bucky had given him a new sketchbook with some pastel highlighters because Steve told him he liked those kind of colours, then he added some other stuff a girl from the shop said would be a great gift for someone who draws a lot but Bucky had no idea if it was good. He hoped it would be, because that shit was expensive as hell.

Steve liked everything. 

Steve also liked meeting Bucky's friends - everyone loved Steve, and no one (except Sam, but Sam was an asshole) made a joke on how close Steve and Bucky sat next to each other, how close their heads were when they talked slow and deep to each other, how close their eyes were from fall on each other's lips when a pause lasted too long.  
They went to pool parties, regular parties, just-eating-pizza-and-watching-X-Men parties, it's-raining-and-we-should-drink-hot-chocolate parties, hey-I-was-walking-down-the-street-and-you-live-four-blocks-away parties, have-you-seen-this-cute-dog?-meet-me-at-the-park-to-see-him parties. 

It was as if their friendship was so close, written so deep in the way they thought that the only way to continue was to fall apart, or fall in love.

They preferred the latter, of course. They fell for each other, as strangers, as friends, as best friends, and slowly but surely, as lovers. Their little game, the one to find Steve's tattoo meaning changed the way they held themselves whenever the other was around. The point of it suddenly changed, it wasn't to win it, it was an habit. They were used to playing, like two kids playing hide and seek, in a never ending day. But days do end, and so does childhood, and so did their game. 

"What's today's fact?" asked Steve, surprising Bucky. The brunette was sitting on one of those very uncomfortable chairs that the museum provided their guards with when Steve came from behind. "I hope it's better than the other ones." he told him, joking around. 

"Okay, I'm sure you'll be surprised. Jeanne Mammen, she's basically unknown if you get out of Germany. You're not German, right? So this girl was painting lesbians all the time, y'know? Because in Weimar Germany, it was accepted, but only until the nazis took direction in 33." Bucky said as Steve was silent, "She painted so many lesbians that historians thought she was one too. But here's the thing. I think she was against love in general. She stopped seeing her best friend because he got married, and she was against that kind of life. I think she was asexual. Aromantic, even. But no one says it. " 

Steve looked at him with big eyes. "This isn't a fact." Bucky opened his mouth to answer, but the blond boy was faster. "It's what you think, it isn't proved, and it's an anachronism to put recent labels on people that existed before the world even used that language." His whisper seemed mean, and maybe it was, which was probably the reason why Steve added, "But nice try, Buck, nice try. Maybe you'll have more luck next time." 

Bucky sighed. "Right." He looked at the time, "Gotta change rooms. You coming with me?" he asked, taking his foldable chair in hand. Steve didn't answer but when Bucky moved, he followed him quietly. "One day I'll find a fact that you won't know,” he promised, walking towards the abstract art room. 

Steve laughed. "Yeah, I'll die before that happens, but you can dream." He smiled, in a such gentle way that Bucky tried to find a way to picture it forever, maybe with a bad joke that would force him to stay like that forever - but it was too late, and Steve's smile became a serious line. 

"Which room are we going to?" Steve wondered. 

"The abstract room," Bucky whispered to his best friend. "I'm so mad about this room," he confessed, holding his breath.

"You don't like abstract, uh?" Steve stopped in his steps, "It's so sad. This museum literally has the first every abstract drawing, and you can't enjoy it. That's sad, Buck." It wasn't a reproach, but something seemed sad in Steve's voice - maybe because he liked everything that was close to art and he hoped everyone could share his deep passion. But he was wrong. 

"Oh, no, Steve, you're wrong. I'm maybe not the biggest abstract art fan, but I do enjoy some of it." He smiled kindly, "I'm mad because this museum keeps saying they have the first abstract drawing, and that's false." He shrugged. 

Steve turned around. "They do. They have the one made by Kandinsky." To which Bucky laughed. 

"Yeah, but it's not the first one that was created. It's false advertising," Bucky insisted while Steve gaped. 

"Wait. What's the first one?" He asked slowly, not sure to understand. Bucky shook his head - this was something normal to know, right, when you were studying art, to know the first person to ever paint abstraction. 

"Hilma af Klint, of course?" he said, his voice making it sound like a question. Steve furrowed his brows and took his phone out. Bucky inspected him and placed his head (well, he tried, at least) over Steve's shoulder. 

"Whatcha' checkin'?" he asked. 

"You're right,” he said. 

Bucky chuckled, "Yeah, I'm right. But you knew that, huh? The Hilma af Klint thing? They discovered her pieces years ago. It's known that the first abstract painter was a woman,” he told him. 

Steve shook his head. "I didn't know." 

A silence weighed between them. 

"Shoot, Chris Burden, 1971," Steve broke the silence. 

Bucky moved his head. "Sorry, what?" 

"Shoot, the artwork created by Chris Burden in 1971, was a performance that Chris did with one of his friends. He was in a museum and stood still, with his friend holding a gun to him, then he was supposed to fire and miss - but he didn't and Chris ended up with a bullet in his arm." 

Bucky blinked twice. He had no idea what Steve was saying and how it was relevant to the discussion. "I don't get it. We were talking about abstract art, right?" he smiled, not sure what was going on. 

"You said this thing about Hilma af Klint, and I didn't know that. You won, Buck, you did it. So I'm telling you what my tattoo means. It's a reference." Bucky gaped, surprised - this was it? This was the information he won with? The game they had for months was over? 

"It's a reference," continued Steve, " this performance, about not doing anything when it happens in front of you - I mean, the gallery was full of many, many spectators and no one tried to stop the bullet. It's still pretty relevant to this day, I think." He stopped for a second. "My parents. They met at that exhibition. That's why I have that tattoo, because it's about art, but also about them, about me. It's a part of all of us three, and how the art created our family." 

Bucky's breath stopped for a second. Sure, he was happy to finally know what the tattoo meant, but that finished their little game, what they bonded over the few last months. Suddenly, he was afraid, what if the end of this meant the end of them? It could be, because when you lose your routine it may break everything. 

"That's... wonderful,” he managed, mouth dry. Steve furrowed his brows. 

"Something wrong, Buck?" he asked, coming closer, 

"Uh, no, nothing. I'm glad you told me, but I've grown attached to our little game, y'know?" Bucky explained, Steve laughed. "I can propose you another little game, if you want? 

Maybe you'll like it as much as the first one,” he offered, smiling with his teeth.

Bucky was restraining himself from screaming a yes. "Tell me?" 

Steve seemed to think for a few seconds. "The game is: you prepare yourself with a nice shirt, wait for me, then I show up at your place and you go in my car, then I take us to some nice restaurant and we eat with stupid candles and after all of that is over, I take you home to Sam and maybe you can propose a coffee or a drink." 

Bucky blinked. 

"This sounds like you're describing a date, Steve. Might watch out with the words you use," Bucky joked around. 

"You're stupid. That's the idea. That's our new game Bucky. Just date me already." 

 

  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for : Kiss Me in Front of a Klimt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17920841) by [Lasenby_Heathcote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasenby_Heathcote/pseuds/Lasenby_Heathcote)




End file.
